Phantastes, A Faerie Romance | Page 6

CHAPTER II
"`Where is the stream?' cried he, with tears. `Seest thou its not in blue
waves above us?' He looked up, and lo! the blue stream was flowing
gently over their heads." --NOVALIS, Heinrich von Ofterdingen.
While these strange events were passing through my mind, I suddenly,
as one awakes to the consciousness that the sea has been moaning by
him for hours, or that the storm has been howling about his window all
night, became aware of the sound of running water near me; and,
looking out of bed, I saw that a large green marble basin, in which I
was wont to wash, and which stood on a low pedestal of the same
material in a corner of my room, was overflowing like a spring; and
that a stream of clear water was running over the carpet, all the length
of the room, finding its outlet I knew not where. And, stranger still,
where this carpet, which I had myself designed to imitate a field of
grass and daisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-
blades and daisies seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the
water's flow; while under the rivulet they bent and swayed with every
motion of the changeful current, as if they were about to dissolve with
it, and, forsaking their fixed form, become fluent as the waters.

My dressing-table was an old-fashioned piece of furniture of black oak,
with drawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved in
foliage, of which ivy formed the chief part. The nearer end of this table
remained just as it had been, but on the further end a singular change
had commenced. I happened to fix my eye on a little cluster of
ivy-leaves. The first of these was evidently the work of the carver; the
next looked curious; the third was unmistakable ivy; and just beyond it
a tendril of clematis had twined itself about the gilt handle of one of the
drawers. Hearing next a slight motion above me, I looked up, and saw
that the branches and leaves designed upon the curtains of my bed were
slightly in motion. Not knowing what change might follow next, I
thought it high time to get up; and, springing from the bed, my bare feet
alighted upon a cool green sward; and although I dressed in all haste, I
found myself completing my toilet under the boughs of a great tree,
whose top waved in the golden stream of the sunrise with many
interchanging lights, and with shadows of leaf and branch gliding over
leaf and branch, as the cool morning wind swung it to and fro, like a
sinking sea-wave.
After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and looked
around me. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all night was
one of the advanced guard of a dense forest, towards which the rivulet
ran. Faint traces of a footpath, much overgrown with grass and moss,
and with here and there a pimpernel even, were discernible along the
right bank. "This," thought I, "must surely be the path into Fairy Land,
which the lady of last night promised I should so soon find." I crossed
the rivulet, and accompanied it, keeping the footpath on its right bank,
until it led me, as I expected, into the wood. Here I left it, without any
good reason: and with a vague feeling that I ought to have followed its
course, I took a more southerly direction.

CHAPTER III
"Man doth usurp all space, Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in the face.
Never thine eyes behold a tree; 'Tis no sea thou seest in the sea, 'Tis but

a disguised humanity. To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan; All that
interests a man, is man." HENRY SUTTON.
The trees, which were far apart where I entered, giving free passage to
the level rays of the sun, closed rapidly as I advanced, so that ere long
their crowded stems barred the sunlight out, forming as it were a thick
grating between me and the East. I seemed to be advancing towards a
second midnight. In the midst of the intervening twilight, however,
before I entered what appeared to be the darkest portion of the forest, I
saw a country maiden coming towards me from its very depths. She did
not seem to observe me, for she was apparently intent upon a bunch of
wild flowers which she carried in her hand. I could hardly see her face;
for, though she came direct towards me, she never looked up. But when
we met, instead of passing, she turned and walked alongside of me for a
few yards, still keeping her face downwards, and busied with